PROBLEM 1: Just when we think we’ve heard it all, a bunch of cops find a New Jersey factory full of exploding bottles of ketchup. Apparently some criminalswere buying the cheapest type of Heinz ketchupand squirting it into bottles labeled as a more expensive type, so they could sell them for more money and make some extra. But they abandoned the project, not knowing that when you leave sugary, vinegary stuff like ketchup in a hot place, the bottles eventually blow up, literally. Now officials have to find the ketchup thieves, but it shouldn’t be hard – they probably have very sticky fingers.
Wee ones (counting on fingers): If the ketchup was bottled on October 2 and then took just 4 days to get hot enough to burst, on what date did the bottles blow up?
Little kids: If you packed 20 ketchup bottles and 11 of them burst, how many are still okay to squirt on your hot dog? Bonus: If the temperature is 73 degrees and they’ll explode if it’s 20 degrees warmer than that, how hot does it have to get to make the ketchup explode?
Big kids: Apparently it cost the thieves 6 cents per ounce to buy the cheap ketchup. How much did they spend to fill each 12-ounce bottle? Bonus: If they could turn around and sell it for $1 per bottle, and they have 20 crates with 32 bottles in each one, how much money will the counterfeit bottles sell for in total?
Answers:
Wee ones: October 6.
Little kids: 9 good bottles. Bonus: 93 degrees.
Big kids: 72 cents. Bonus: $640.
PROBLEM 2:
The woolly mammoth was a giant mammal that roamed the earth tens of thousands of years ago. It looked a lot like an elephant, with its large curved tusks and long trunk, except it had wild, thick, 3-foot long shaggy hair that covered its body. That hairstyle couldn’t have smelled so good, but it helped the woolly mammoth live in extremely cold temperatures. In addition to the mess of hair, the woolly mammoth also kept warm with a layer of fat under its skin, similar to the blubber found in whales. While woolly mammoths don’t live today, some scientists think we’ll be able to use the frozen remains of mammoths to create living ones within the next ten years – hey, maybe you’ll be able to get one as a pet. Just stock up on shampoo if you do.
Wee ones: If each mammoth had 2 giant tusks, how many did a family of 4 have?
Little kids: Woolly mammoths were larger than modern elephants, and their tusks showed it: a mammoth’s tusks were up to 16 feet long. Regular African elephants’ tusks reach only 10 feet, which sounds a lot safer for the rest of us. How much longer were the mammoth’s? Bonus: On the other hand, mammoths’ ears were much smaller than the big floppy ones on modern elephants. The largest mammoth ear found is 12 inches long, while the largest elephant ear ever recorded was 71 inches long. How much longer was the largest elephant ear?
Big kids: The hair on a woolly mammoth could be up to 3 feet long or even more – let’s call it 36 inches. How does that compare to your height? Bonus: The woolly mammoth itself could be up to 10 feet tall. How much taller than you is that? (Reminder: There are 12 inches in a foot.)
Answers:
Wee ones: 8 tusks.
Little kids: 6 feet longer. Bonus: 59 inches longer.
Big kids: Different for everyone…subtract 36 from your height in inches, or subtract your height from 36 if your height is less. Bonus: Also unique…subtract your height from 120 inches. We’re pretty sure you’re shorter than that!
PROBLEM 3:
We all love those scenes where some big friendly dog lopes across the grass and knocks his owner flat as he jumps up to give a big, slobbery kiss. Well, this dog can’t do that. There’s a 3-month-old puppy in Poland, named Meysi, who is so tiny that she weighs only about 3 ounces! That’s about the weight of a large candy bar, and less than a cellphone by a whole couple of ounces. Once she’s a full year old, she and two other microscopic dogs can find out if they qualify as the world’s smallest dog, since by then they’ll be done growing. If that isn’t an honor they’re looking to win, they’d better start eating up.
Wee ones (counting on fingers): The world’s current shortest dog, named Boo Boo, is just 4 inches tall. But a new puppy named Milly is just 3 inches tall. How many inches does Boo Boo have on Milly?
Little kids: A pound has 16 ounces. If Meysi currently weighs 3 ounces, how many more ounces would she have to gain to weigh 1 pound? Bonus: Which one weighs more, Meysi and her 8-ounce dog food bowl together, or two 5-ounce iPhones?
Big kids: Meysi weighed just 1 1/2 ounces when she was born. She’s now 3 1/4 ounces, to be a little more exact. How much weight has she gained? Bonus: A lot of these eensy dogs are Chihuahuas, but Chihuahuas can normally run up to 6 pounds. If a pound has 16 ounces and your Chihuahua weighs 6 pounds, how many times heavier than Meysi’s 3 ounces is that?
Answers:
Wee ones: 1 inch taller.
Little kids: 13 more ounces. Bonus: Meysi and her bowl win, at 11 ounces vs. 10.
Big kids: 1 3/4 ounces. Bonus: 32 times heavier. One method: multiply by 2 to get to 6 ounces, then by 16 to get from ounces to pounds.
PROBLEM 4:
They say – and we aren’t sure who “they” are, but they seem to know a lot – that you can’t eat 5Saltine crackers in 1 minute without drinking any water. The time-honored crackers are just too dry and salty to swallow. Since we found this hard to believe, we tried this experiment here at the Bedtime Math labs, and you know, you can sort of do it, but it’s tough (and not that tasty). Saltines aren’t the only food that pose a challenge, though; it’s not like they’ll go down easier with peanut butter on them. And maple syrup, sticky buns, and caramel aren’t any better. If you want to race, choose your food carefully.
Wee ones (counting on fingers): If you’re trying to eat 5 Saltines without sipping any water, and you’ve chowed down 3 of them already, how many Saltines left to go?
Little kids: If there are 20 Saltines in each plastic-wrapped stack in the box, how many times do you have to do this trick to eat through the whole tube? Bonus: If it takes you 8 seconds per cracker, how fast can you eat the set of 5?
Big kids: If you can chug down a mini-peanut butter sandwich without water in 34 seconds, but you can do it in half that time with a glass of water, how fast can you eat it with water? Bonus: Meanwhile, your friend can eat a stack of syrupy waffles without water in 42 seconds. Who will finish the race first, you eating 3 sandwiches dry or your friend eating 2 waffle stacks dry?
Answers:
Wee ones: 2 more Saltines.
Little kids: 4 times. Bonus: 40 seconds.
Big kids: 17 seconds. Bonus: Your friend will win, in 84 seconds vs. 102 for you.
PROBLEM 5:
On this day in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated as a gift from France to the United States, and ever since then has stood in New York Harbor facing outward to welcome visitors. The pieces of the statue were created in France and shipped to America in crates – literally by ship, since they didn’t have airplanes back then. If you’re wondering why she’s green, her skin is made of that reddish metal called copper, and when exposed to years of weathering (like the coming hurricane), copper turns green. Even though that copper layer is only 3/32 of an inch thick, it weighs 60,000 pounds – and when you look at the size of her, you soon see why.
Wee ones (counting up on fingers): The Statue’s head is exactly 10 feet wide from ear to ear. If your bed is 6 feet long, how much wider is her head by comparison?
Little kids: The Statue’s hand is about 16 feet tall. If the ceiling of your bedroom is 8 feet high, how much taller is her hand? Bonus: Meanwhile, her nose is 54 inches tall. How does that compare to your whole height?
Big kids: To get everyone excited, the Statue’s arm, one of the first body parts created, was put on display in New York City from 1876 to 1882. For how many years was that? Bonus: The Statue weighs a total of 450,000 pounds, or about the weight of 18 school buses. If the copper accounts for 60,000 pounds of that, how many pounds of other materials are holding her up?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 feet wider.
Little kids: 8 feet taller. Bonus: Different for everyone…subtract your height from 54 inches, or 54 from your height. That’s a pretty tall nose.
Big kids: 6 years on display. Bonus: 390,000 pounds.
PROBLEM 6:
Right now Hurricane Sandy is pounding the east coast of the United States, with sheets of pouring rain, an alarmingly surging ocean, and expected winds of over 75 miles an hour (at Bedtime Math here in New Jersey, we unfortunately have a front seat on all this). While it’s a little more excitement than we need to see the winds and waters rising, one just has to marvel at these incredible storms. North Atlantic hurricanes form over the ocean and spin counterclockwise, with the fastest winds wrapping around the very center of the storm, called the “eye.” Wind speeds can reach over 160 miles an hour in the worst (Category 5) storms, and several inches of rain can fall in just one day. As we ponder the numbers, for those riding out this hurricane we hope you are safe, warm and dry.
Wee ones (counting on fingers): If you get 3 inches of rain the first day of a hurricane and 4 more inches the next day, how many inches of rain did you get?
Little kids: In naming hurricanes, there are 5 letters we never use as the first letter, because there just aren’t a lot of first names that start with Q, U, X, Y or Z. How many letters do get used? (Reminder: the alphabet has 26 letters.) Bonus: If a hurricane dumps 1/2 inch of rain per hour on your town for 11 hours, how many inches of rain do you get?
Big kids: A category 3 hurricane has wind speeds of up to 129 miles per hour, and category 4 has speeds of up to 156 miles per hour. How much faster is the Category 4 top speed? Bonus: When hurricanes cause severe damage, their names are retired, meaning that name will never be used again. Since 1993, 38 names have been retired. How many names per year is that on average for that time period?
Answers:
Wee ones: 7 inches of rain – which might be what you normally get in a whole month, or even a year.Little kids: 21 letters are used. Bonus: 5 1/2 inches.Big kids: 27 miles per hour faster. Bonus: 2 per year (38 names in 19 years).
PROBLEM 7:
Have you ever found something that you lost so long ago you forgot all about it? How long was it between when you lost it and found it – days, weeks, even months? Well, however long it was, a man in New York probably has you beat. 53 years ago Ed Grigor’s watch was stolen from him. Recently, someone found the watch, saw Ed’s name on it, and actually returned it to him! This just goes to show that there are still fabulous people in this world – and that it’s important to put your name on your stuff.
Wee ones (counting on fingers): If you have 9 favorite stuffed animals, but somehow 3 of them disappear into the couch, how many stuffed animals do you still have?
Little kids: If in your Lego set there are 22 really cool pieces but 9 of them get vacuumed up, how many cool pieces are left for everyone to have to share? Bonus: If someone empties out the vacuum 2 weeks later and you find them all, how many days were the Lego pieces missing?
Big kids: If you’ve been looking for your favorite pair of sneakers since September 24 and found them tonight, how many days were they missing? (Reminder: September has 30 days, and October has 31; also, you can count both Sept. 24 and today as full days.) Bonus: If you lost a toy at the beginning of February 2010 and found it in the beginning of April this year, how many months was it lost?
Answers:
Wee ones: 6 stuffed animals.
Little kids: 13 Lego pieces. Bonus: 14 days.
Big kids: 39 days (7, then 31, then 1). Bonus: 26 months.
PROBLEM 8:
iVillageCentral 